


in spring, when the anemone bloom

by towine (blacktreecle)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: M/M, mild canon-divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle/pseuds/towine
Summary: It’s been a strange day. Cloud feels more out of his depth than anything else, and he idly thinks that at least no one he knows is here to see him like this.Which is, of course, the exact moment Biggs steps outside of the Leaf House.
Relationships: Biggs/Cloud Strife
Comments: 23
Kudos: 136





	in spring, when the anemone bloom

**Author's Note:**

> hi! resident rarepair shipper here. i just want biggs and cloud to talk to each other more. hopefully you do, too!
> 
> this takes place during chapter 8 and contains no spoilers for anything onwards.
> 
> thank you, as always, to [artenon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon) for the beta, and for giving me the confidence to post this fic at all. gotta populate the biggs/cloud tag somehow!

The flowers smell familiar.

The first one Aerith gave him back in Sector 8 was familiar too, but the smell of a single flower hadn’t been particularly noteworthy. Now Cloud’s got a basket full of them, and there’s an identical one in Aerith’s arms, swaying as she leads him through the Sector 5 crowd and back to the orphanage. The petals bounce in the midday breeze. Cloud doesn’t know why the smell is familiar, or why his gaze keeps drifting down to the flowers, like his mind is trying to pull together the wisps of a thought. A memory.

He doesn’t have much time to think about it before they arrive at the Leaf House, where the children wave eagerly at Aerith and eye Cloud with much suspicion.

He doesn’t take it too personally. People have given him a wide berth from the moment he set foot back in Midgar. But the kids are looking at him with unabashed curiosity, too—or, more accurately, looking at the Buster Sword. And then back to the flowers in his arms like they can’t seem to reconcile the two.

It’s been a strange day. Cloud feels more out of his depth than anything else, and he idly thinks that at least no one he knows is here to see him like this.

Which is, of course, the exact moment Biggs steps outside of the Leaf House.

Cloud blinks. Biggs doubletakes and drops the boxes he’s carrying in his arms with a noisy clatter.

After a moment of stunned staring, he starts running towards Cloud.

Cloud panics as his mind cycles through what Biggs is about to do—somehow decking him doesn’t sound entirely out of the question, even if Cloud wouldn’t know what he did to deserve it.

But Biggs doesn’t punch Cloud. When he gets close enough, he reaches out and—even more strangely than punching him—almost looks like he’s going in for a hug. Cloud understands that even less than a punch in the face. But then Biggs freezes, as if only realizing just now that Cloud may not be a hugging type of person, and instead claps his hands onto Cloud’s shoulders.

“Cloud,” he says breathlessly around a burgeoning smile, and Cloud can feel the faintest of tremors in Biggs’s hands. “You’re a dramatic son of a bitch, you know that?”

Cloud frowns in confusion, and Aerith stares in wide-eyed fascination and hides a smile behind her hand.

“Biggs!” comes the unhappy sound of a teacher’s voice, making Biggs flinch. “Really? In front of the children?”

“Er, sorry.” Biggs jogs over to tidy up the mess he made of the boxes. Supplies for the Leaf House, it looks like. “Sorry, sorry,” he says again, and then to the kids, “You all forget what I said just now.”

“Son of a—” one of the children begins to say before a girl claps a hand over his mouth.

The teacher gives Biggs a look and Biggs grins sheepishly.

“Inside now,” the teacher says and ushers the children through the front doors. “Aerith will show us all the flowers she’s brought and we can decide how to decorate with them, okay?”

Cloud continues standing there, brain still processing what’s going on, and Aerith giggles and pries the basket from his hand.

“I’ll take care of this,” she says, then tilts her head towards Biggs. “You want to catch up with your friend?”

“Not a friend,” Cloud says quickly. “He’s… a colleague.”

“Oh? In bodyguard work?”

“I’ve told you, this is a one time thing.” Cloud isn’t surprised at all when Aerith giggles.

“Right. Well, he seems happy to see you, whatever it is you two do for a day job.” Aerith waltzes over and, before Cloud can think to stop her, bends down to help Biggs tidy up the rest of the supplies.

“Thanks,” Biggs says, hefting the boxes back into his arms. “I got the rest from here.”

“Of course.” Aerith smiles. Then looking over to Cloud, she says, “I’ll be done in a couple hours, probably. Go on and explore!” She steps through the Leaf House’s doors and pulls them shut behind her.

Which leaves Cloud with Biggs.

It’s not inherently uncomfortable, being alone with him. Cloud can’t deny they’ve gotten to know each other a little better, despite Cloud’s reluctance to entangle himself with Avalanche any further than he already has. Still, he can count on one hand the number of opportunities they’ve had to speak to each other one on one. And this isn’t exactly how Cloud imagined reuniting.

“You know her?” Biggs asks, setting the boxes down on one of the nearby tables.

“Met her today,” Cloud says. “She’s… a character.”

Biggs hums. “Funny, hearing that from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” Biggs says innocently, which doesn’t convince Cloud in the slightest. Then his expression turns more serious. “Anyway, what happened to you? Heard from Barret and Tifa that you’d fallen off the reactor.”

“I did,” Cloud admits, grimacing at the memory. “Then I fell through Aerith’s roof.”

Biggs raises his brows. “Her _roof_?”

“Well, her church roof.” Cloud rubs the back of his neck. “Then a Turk showed up and we ran off.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Biggs waves a hand for Cloud to stop. “A Turk? What in the Planet’s name have you been up to?”

“A lot has happened,” Cloud says snappishly. “It’s been a long day.”

“I’m sure it has.” Biggs turns a little sympathetic as he glances Cloud up and down. Cloud knows he must look pretty ragged considering he didn’t get a real night’s rest, unless lying unconscious in Aerith’s flowers counts. It’s been a day full of climbing and running and fighting besides that, and even his mako-enhanced stamina is starting to take a hit. “You heading back to Sector 7, then?”

“Yes. But.” Cloud glances towards the doors Aerith walked through.

Biggs snickers. “Guess falling through her roof makes you her pack-chocobo for the day.”

“Bodyguard, actually.” Cloud sighs.

“Oh, even better.” Biggs gestures down one of the winding pathways away from the Leaf House. “Then while we’re here, how about lunch?”

Eating hadn’t even occurred to Cloud. He figured he’d spend his free time doing whatever odd jobs people needed done around Sector 5, until Aerith finished with her business. There’s always something. Monsters to be disposed of, items to be recovered. Whatever he needs to do to keep moving forward. There isn’t time for anything else.

He must stare in contemplation a moment too long, because Biggs rolls his eyes and pushes him towards the pathway. “Even SOLDIERs need to eat, Cloud. Come on. There’s a good place not far from here.”

“You know this sector well?” Cloud asks, and maybe it’s because he’s grown accustomed to being dragged around all day, but he obediently follows Biggs’s direction.

“Used to work around here,” Biggs says. He takes in the ramshackle surroundings with a fondness that Cloud feels he should look away from, as if it’s something private. “Some things haven’t changed at all. There’re a lot more plants than I remember, though.”

“Aerith’s doing, probably.” Cloud remembers the lush foliage surrounding her house. “How’s everyone else? Tifa, Barret. Is Jessie’s leg feeling better?”

Biggs pauses with his hand on the door of a café. He looks at Cloud oddly.

Cloud, defensive, says, “What?”

“Nothing.” Biggs smiles a little. He opens the door for Cloud and says as they step through together, “They’re fine. All worried about you, of course; even Barret, though the big guy’d never admit it. But they’re okay. They’ll be happy to see you.”

The instinctual disbelief at anyone besides Tifa worrying about him rises within Cloud at first. But even Barret was concerned last night when Cloud was dangling hundreds of feet over the Sector 5 slums. Biggs, too, was so relieved to find him he dropped what he was doing and ran over to—to… well.

“I’ll be back soon,” Cloud says. “We both will.”

He doesn’t know why it makes his face feel warm to say it, or why it makes Biggs look pleased. A thought to be considered another time, maybe.

Biggs waves hello to the owners of the café who greet him like an old friend, and when he introduces them to Cloud he quickly calms them down when they make wide-eyed stares at the Buster Sword. It isn’t so bad now. Cloud feels a little less out of place with Biggs here. With—with a friend, if Biggs cares to be labelled as one.

Even if he drops too much chili paste into Cloud’s bowl of noodles when Cloud isn’t looking and laughs at the shade of red his face turns.

“Hey,” Biggs says when their bowls are empty and he’s asked for three refills of water on Cloud’s behalf, “I’m sure there are some jobs around here, if you’re still trying to promote your merc business.”

Cloud puts down his finished glass with a clink on the table. “Finally.”

* * *

Biggs is slumped against Cloud’s shoulder.

They’re sitting together on a blue bench at a busy intersection, though the crowd is beginning to calm a bit as the day fades to dusk. At first, Biggs laid himself out on the bench the moment he saw it, but Cloud nudged him over to make room. Afterwards, he opted for leaning against Cloud’s shoulder, which didn’t bother Cloud as much as he thought it would. They both needed a breather.

Cloud feels Biggs shift against him when he finally sits up and asks, “Time to head back?”

He offers a potion to Cloud, his glove slightly singed from a Hedgehog Pie whose fire came a little too close for comfort.

Cloud takes a swallow and hands the rest of the bottle back. The mako makes the potion work quickly through his system, and he can already feel his strength starting to come back. “Yeah,” he says and rises from the bench.

Biggs downs the rest of the bottle and follows suit with a long groan. “No offense, but I think this is the last time I tag along for merc stuff.”

The corner of Cloud’s mouth twitches. “You held your own pretty well.”

“Only pretty well? Gee, thanks.” Biggs stretches his arms over his head. “Ah, I can’t wait to get back to Seventh Heaven for a drink.”

“The Leaf House, first,” Cloud says. “Aerith’s waiting.”

“Of course. Lead on, Mr. Merc.”

Sector 5’s night scene begins to stir to life as they make their way back to the orphanage. The few slats of sky that are visible have turned purple with the evening. Lamps flicker with gold light in the windows of passing homes, and shopkeepers close their front displays while bars and restaurants switch on their neon signs.

In front of the Leaf House, Aerith is helping one of the children place a flower exactly where they want it, just a little too high up on the flower mural for them to reach. There are stray petals strewn on the ground in all assortments of colors, and extra flowers tucked in the children’s hair, in empty cans and glass soda bottles, decorating the area with newfound color.

Aerith turns when Cloud and Biggs approach, takes one look at them, then laughs. “You two look like you’ve had quite a day.”

Cloud thought he’d gotten all the debris out of his hair with Biggs’s help, but he supposes there’s no hiding the singed look his armor has taken, or the monster viscera clinging to his boots. “Jobs,” he says by way of explanation. “Including some from these kids.”

“I heard!” Aerith gestures at one of the children with cardboard swords on their backs. “You’ve earned yourself some new admirers.”

Cloud doesn’t really know what to say about that. He can understand, on a superficial level, why the kids would be enamored with the Buster Sword. But they’ve even imitated his mannerisms, which is just another level of odd that Cloud isn’t quite ready to deal with.

“Cloud has a way with ’em,” Biggs says, patting Cloud on the shoulder. “Even if he won’t admit it.”

“There’s nothing to admit,” Cloud protests with a frown that Biggs ignores.

Aerith smiles. “Biggs, right?”

“Yup.” He holds out a hand for her to shake. “And I take it you’re the flower girl people have mentioned so much?”

“Aerith.” Aerith takes his hand. “And yes! You guys like the new mural?” She points to the flowers arranged in the shape and colors of a chocobo, currently surrounded by children still trying to make it perfect. “We’re almost done.”

“Oh, it looks great!” Biggs walks closer to get a better look. The kids make sounds of excitement when he approaches, pull him in closer and launch into an explanation of everything they did. Cloud follows for lack of anything else to do, and he figures it’ll make Aerith happy to look at the kids’ handiwork. It’s not bad at all. He’s genuinely impressed.

“Good job,” Cloud says to one of the kids he recognizes, the one with sunglasses.

He perks up and beams at him. “Cloud, sir!” he says. “Do you really like it? We chose a chocobo because it reminded us of you!”

“I—oh,” Cloud says. “That’s… clever.”

It’s not the first time—and likely won’t be the last—that Cloud has heard the comparison. And while he usually scowls and says to knock it off, he can’t really do the same with the kids. It’s fine. It’s a nice mural either way.

Cloud hears a snort not far from him and finds Biggs watching all this unfold. He looks amused. Amused and… something else. Cloud can’t really place what, and trying to do so would mean staring at Biggs some more, which is starting to feel embarrassing very quickly.

Luckily, Aerith approaches with a look Cloud has come to recognize over the course of the day: a favor.

“Like I said, it’s almost done,” she says, and holds out the baskets they brought earlier today. “Mind grabbing a few more flowers for me? You can take Biggs with you.”

“Thought I was a bodyguard,” Cloud says. He takes the baskets anyway. Aerith smiles even brighter. “Not a delivery man.”

Aerith wags a finger. “Don’t see why you can’t do both. Expand your skill set, and all that.”

Cloud huffs, not quite a laugh, but. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Aerith singsongs and waves him away.

Cloud stalks over to Biggs and pushes a basket into his arms.

“What?” Biggs says, looking confused, and even more so when Cloud starts pushing him along the path that leads to Aerith’s house. “Uh, where we going?”

“Aerith’s house. She needs more flowers.”

“Oh.” Biggs nods like he understands, though he doesn’t look like he understands it at all. He doesn’t ask why Cloud is taking him with, which is good because Cloud isn’t entirely sure why, either.

Night has completely fallen now. Above them, the plate glows eerily and the flares of the mako reactors shine their lurid light into the night sky. But Aerith’s garden glows in other ways entirely. Cloud leads Biggs towards the patches of flowers he and Aerith picked from earlier, and he hears Biggs’s quiet, “Whoa,” upon seeing it. Cloud felt the same way. He never imagined seeing so much green in Midgar, so much life. Lamps illuminate the flower beds, and fireflies dance over the waters that wind lazily through the garden. The energy here—Cloud can feel it, how it’s different from the kind that flows through the pipes.

Maybe that’s why Cloud brought Biggs along, or why Aerith suggested he did: it feels like the very thing Avalanche is fighting for.

“I’ve heard rumors,” Biggs says, looking around in wide-eyed wonder. “But I’ve never actually seen this place myself. Or anything like it, really.”

“Yeah.” Cloud stops and crouches in front of a bed of yellow flowers, placing his basket on the ground beside him. “Didn’t think anything could grow in Midgar.”

He examines a few plants and tries to remember the explanation Aerith gave him earlier on which ones were ready to cut and which weren’t. They all look the same to him, truth be told, but he reaches out for one of the stems and hopes for the best.

Biggs crouches down beside him soon after. “Maybe you could take some back to Jessie, like a get well soon present. She’d like that.”

“I’m sure she would,” Cloud says. He tucks a few flowers into the basket.

Biggs smiles. “Hey, but. I’m grateful for what you did, though. Really. She is, too. Mission would’ve been a total bust without you.” The smile slips away, his mouth folding into a pensive frown. “She felt pretty bad though, when she heard what happened. Said that shouldn’t have happened to you, and if only she hadn’t gotten hurt and had been at the reactor instead, so on and so forth.” He sighs, idly touching the leaves of one of the flowers.

Cloud listens, slowing a bit in his flower picking. “It’s fine,” he says, because it is. It was a job like any other.

But Biggs continues, voice kind of low and rambling, “But of course, if she had been there, who knows how things would have panned out. Can’t imagine much better. No one but you three could have taken on that mech Shinra sicked on you. But at the same time, she’s right: there’s no way we could ask a sacrifice like that from you.”

“Biggs,” Cloud says firmly.

Biggs blinks and closes his mouth. He looks a little sheepish. “Sorry. I know, it’s all moot anyway. And Jessie’ll feel a lot better when she hears you’re okay.”

“I am okay,” Cloud says, and the words feel odd in his mouth, but it’s true. He’s okay, more or less. Has spent the day lost and confused, but he’s in one piece. Here, picking flowers. Here, in the greenest place in Midgar, and the air feels a little fresher and sweeter in his lungs, and Biggs is here too, and they are… okay.

“Yeah,” Biggs says. He nods once, and the smile is back, and Cloud doesn’t know why it makes him feel relieved. “You know, I didn’t think flower picking was part of the job description.”

“Me neither,” Cloud grumbles, which makes Biggs laugh. Cloud lingers to watch Biggs raise a hand to his face as he snickers, how he hides his smile in the crook of his gloved wrist. Cloud gets the very sudden urge to take that wrist and ease it away from his face—to see him just a little better.

The urge disappears as quickly as it came, but the flush that has broken out over Cloud’s face doesn’t. He swivels his gaze to the flowers and returns to the task of plucking them.

“Oddly enough,” Biggs says, sounding thoughtful again, “it suits you.”

“What?” Cloud turns to him.

As soon as he does, Biggs reaches out with a flower in his hand. Cloud briefly thinks Biggs is going to shove it in his face except he takes it a little further, brushes it past Cloud’s cheek so closely that the petals graze his skin, and tucks the flower stem behind Cloud’s ear.

Cloud freezes. His heart leaps high into his throat, blood warming him all over. So much for that blush going away.

Biggs, on the other hand, just looks relaxed. “It suits you,” he says again. “No need to be fighting all the time, I think.”

This is, in all honesty, the most at ease Cloud has ever seen him. Biggs always seems on edge—not always in an obvious way, but enough that Cloud can tell. He’s the contingency planner, and Cloud’s learned firsthand that Biggs tends to get wrapped up in his own thoughts. With all the activity Avalanche has been doing lately, and especially this last mission in Reactor 5, it’s not surprising that Biggs hasn’t had a moment’s rest.

But right now his shoulders are loose, his elbow propped on one bent knee and his hand pressed against his cheek, smile illuminated by the light of fireflies, and Cloud thinks—he thinks—

“It suits you better,” he says, the words sailing right out of his mouth before he can even reconsider them. But this is true, too. Peace looks good on Biggs. It makes Cloud not want to leave this peace so soon.

Biggs is staring.

Shit. Cloud turns roughly away. Only said four words and it still feels like too much.

“Anyway,” Cloud starts to say, reaching for the basket now full of flowers, “we should—”

A hand drops onto his hair.

Just at the crown of his head, calloused fingers ruffling the spikes there. Cloud goes completely still save for a shiver that races down his spine. The blush _worsens_ , damn it. And then Biggs’s hand slides down to the nape of Cloud’s neck.

His fingers are warm. He holds Cloud in place with just that one hand, and Cloud doesn’t move away even though it’d be so easy for him to do so. He sucks in a breath and just—waits, watching Biggs’s eyes roam over his face with a gentleness Cloud is so rarely on the receiving end of.

“Maybe we won’t have to be fighting for much longer,” Biggs says. It’s a long shot, both of them know.

A long shot, but—

“Maybe,” Cloud murmurs.

He can let himself hope for it. Just this once.

Biggs’s hand finally drops away, and Cloud so viscerally misses the contact that he almost catches Biggs’s hand in his own. But Aerith is waiting for them. And Tifa and Barret and the others, too. They can’t stay in the garden forever.

Biggs helps him carry the flowers, not that they’re heavy. It does free one of Cloud’s hands, though, and makes it easier for him to catch Biggs by the back of his shirt and gently tug him in the right direction when he gets distracted wandering through the garden paths.

It’s a shame to leave it so soon, but maybe they can come back. With everyone this time, if Aerith would be alright with that. Cloud has a feeling she will.

He looks forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to share any biggs/cloud feelings you may have over at [my twitter](https://twitter.com/okaybiggs) x)


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